


Armor of Thread

by thelittlestbird



Series: Stronger than Ice [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 16:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3416783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlestbird/pseuds/thelittlestbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Between Episode 4-7 and 4-8, Sansa sews, remembers, and plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Armor of Thread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chavalah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chavalah/gifts).



The needle went in and out, bright metal through black cloth. 

Sansa looked up, catching a glimpse of icy blue sky through the window’s gap in the Eyrie’s gray stone. Blue sky, and brighter colors below: the banners of the Vale’s nobles approaching while Sansa sewed the black mourning clothes that she would need now that her aunt was dead.

She could read the banners and shields as easily as she could read a book. A broken wheel, black on green. House Waynwood, with Lady Anya at its head. Kind Lady Anya, who’d always smiled at Sansa. Would she smile at her now, not knowing who she was?

Next, black iron studs on a bronze field: Bronze Yohn Royce. She remembered his son, Ser Waymar, when he stopped at Winterfell: young, handsome, brave, going to take the black at the Wall. He was like a noble prince in one of the stories, wrongly accused of some terrible deed and doomed to a lifetime of cold and black and ice. Like one of the stories, too, that day seemed like a hundred years ago now.

 _‘We Remember’,_ she heard her mother’s voice saying in her mind. _Those are the words of House Royce. ‘We Remember.’_

Sansa laid another stitch next to the first, black thread on black cloth. Black on black like the Night’s Watch, like young Ser Waymar. Like Jon Snow, whom Sansa had started to miss without realizing it.

She didn’t need to sew her own mourning clothes, of course; a lady didn’t need to sew anything of her own. Even the girl she was pretending to be, Lord Baelish’s ward Alayne, wouldn’t need to. (He wanted her to call him Petyr. She couldn’t bring herself to do it, not even in her own mind.) But sewing and praying were things that would let her be alone, and there was no godswood here, so she would sew.

As soon as she started, it calmed the inner storm of her mind. The needle went in and out in a steady rhythm, the thread tied the fabric together, the gown took shape bit by tiny bit. She’d always loved embroidery. It always made sense, and yet at the same time was magical somehow, the way that the tiny bits of thread lined up next to each other, stitch by stitch and hour by hour, to make a picture.

She’d loved it when she was small because people praised her for it, too. She always liked being praised: doing what people wanted her to do and saying what people wanted her to say.

When the lords and ladies of the Vale talked to her, what would they want her to say? That Lord Baelish was a villain, probably – and he was. But he was protecting her! If she turned against him, could the lords and ladies of the Vale keep her safe? No. He’d killed Joffrey; he’d killed Aunt Lysa – he could kill her too, if he wanted. And if the walls of the Eyrie were gone, how could she protect herself? Where would she go?

The lords and ladies of the Vale had shields and armor and sigils, knights to follow and defend them. What did she have, alone here in her room?

"Know your strengths, use them wisely, and one man can be worth ten thousand” – that was what Lord Baelish had said. 

So what were her strengths? What strength could she possibly have that would help her speak to the lords and ladies of the Vale? 

_Love is stronger than any wall,_ her mother had always said, _and more powerful than any spell._ But who was there for her to love, and to love her? Her mother was gone, and her father and Robb and Bran and Rickon. Maybe Arya, too. Every time she thought of them, it felt as if there were a hole inside her, dark and painful. She wished they were here – any of them, even Arya. But she knew that wishing wouldn’t bring her sister to her. This wasn’t like the stories, and she wasn’t like the ladies in the stories. She wasn’t smart or brave or beautiful like them.

She couldn’t even do anything useful. She could sew, she thought, placing another neat stitch beside the last. She could sing. But what kind of strengths were those? She couldn’t fight. She couldn’t command.

She couldn’t even lie. She was a terrible liar; everyone said so. But at the same time, she couldn’t tell the truth, that Lord Baelish had killed Aunt Lysa! 

She couldn’t tell the truth, and she couldn’t lie.

But they’d said that her father couldn’t lie, too, and he’d taken it as a compliment. Even when it hurt him; even when it killed him.

What did she have that was powerful? The same things that he had: the Stark name, and the truth. And the fact that everyone knew that she couldn’t lie.

So if they knew who she was, they’d know that they could trust her. They’d think that whatever she said was the truth. And so…if she left out part of the story, then maybe the lords and ladies of the Vale would think that there wasn’t anything there to tell?

She wouldn’t tell the whole truth, not that Lord Baelish had killed Aunt Lysa. But…she could tell enough.

And then maybe this black gown could be her armor: something fierce to protect her.

**Author's Note:**

> For your mishloach manot basket: some sweets I baked that Sansa might like! Here are berry tarts and (of course) lemon cakes!  
> 


End file.
